Sunday, 8 February 2009

BAFTA rambling

It's the BAFTAs tonight and expect lots of homegrown love for Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire on its ways to Oscar glory in a fortnight's time. I am, I must admit, ambivalent about Slumdog's success. On one hand, I'm a huge fan of Danny. He's enormously talented and a genuinely nice guy to boot, but as try as I might I can't muster the sense of national pride to totally cheer Slumdog on. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I don't like Slumdog. Far from it. I've seen it twice and it's a terrifically entertaining, well-crafted piece of cinema. It looks great, has the energy and propulsive drive associated with Boyle's work, a gripping narrative, and a great story behind it (I'm talking about it being dumped by its original US distributor Warner Independent, being picked up by Fox Searchlight etc). So why am I not feeling the love? Perhaps it's simply because I don't think it's Danny's best film. (A similar thing happened with The Departed which, as good as it was, wasn't the film Scorsese should have won his Oscar for.) Not that I begrudge him any of the acclaim or awards he's picked up thus far, and will continue to get tonight and on February 22. I'm thrilled for him. After all, it's proof that good guys do triumph. Which, I suppose, is the the theme of the film...